Saturday, December 17, 2005

Show Me the Money

The news media, the pollsters and political pundits say; you are not a viable candidate if you don't have money.

Unfortunately, this is true.

But you can have all of the money in the world, have a resume a mile long and if you don't have a message. Well, you still aren't a viable candidate. Why?

Voters will look at you as if they are looking into the headlights of an oncoming car or Mac truck.

Before entering this race, I wanted to see how I stacked up in the voter's minds and hearts. I also wanted to see if money would be a factor and if so how, much would I need.

So listed below are the precincts that fall within the boundaries of House District 25.

What is interesting about the statistics is, I should have been barely a blip on the radar screen. As everyone knows, the School Board race is a local election and that everyone will say it is a non-partisan race, which in reality is not true.

During the local elections, three assembly races were close or were supposed to be close races. Paul Bauer's, Chris Birch's and Dan Sullivan's race.

So what did Randy Ruedrich do via the Republican party; flyers were mailed out that endorsed seperately, the Assembly candidates in the three races and on the same flyer, endorsed Mary Marks and John Steiner. These flyers were sent out to all registered Republicans in every precinct that was within the respective races.

In Dan Sullivan's race, I wanted to see the effect the mailer had against Matt Claman. Dan did very well. The precincts were 605, 610, 615, 620, 635 and 640.

Now, I looked at the race between Mary and myself.

I didn't do too bad considering she was an incumbent, had a gazillion dollars to spend when compared to about the fifty dollars I spent on my campaign. And then, to top it off, she had the Republican Party and Randy Reudrich endorsement being mailed to every registered Republican in a close Assembly Seat race.

Here are the statistics on the the precincts in House District 25.

Precinct 600Mary Marks had 64/62.14% of the votes. I had 38/36.89% of the votes.

Precinct 605Mary Marks had 98/56% of the votes. I had 72/41.14% of the votes.Dan Sullivan had 128/63.68% of the votes. Matt Claman had 71/35.32% of the votes.

Precinct 610Mary Marks had 168/65.12% of the votes. I had 89/34.50% of the votes.Dan Sullivan had 197/63.75% of the votes. Matt Claman had 112/36.25% of the votes.

Precinct 615Mary Marks had 253/72.49% of the votes. I had 87/24.93% of the votes.Dan Sullivan had 147/49.94% of the votes. Matt Claman had 148/49.83% of the votes.

Precinct 620Mary Marks had 93/60.78% of the votes. I had 58/37.91% of the votes.Dan Sullivan had 110/60.77% of the votes. Matt Claman had 70/38.67% of the votes.

Precinct 625Mary Marks had 73/60.33% of the votes. I had 47/38.84% of the votes.Dick Traini had 92/71.88% of the votes. Troy Maulden had 23/17.97% of the votes.Mark Fish had 13/10.16% of the votes.

Precinct 630Mary Marks had 129/67.54% of the vote. I had 62/32.46% of the vote.

Precinct 635Mary Marks had 191/61.02% of the vote. I had 118/37.30% of the vote.Dan Sullivan had 167/53.35% of the vote. Matt Claman had 144/46.01% of the vote.Dick Traini had 25/55.56% of the vote. Troy Maulden had 13/28.89% of the vote.Mark Fish had 6/13.33% of the vote. (These figures are from the muni website.)

Precinct 640Mary Marks had 89/57.42% of the vote. I had 62/40.00% of the vote.Dan Sullivan had 107/59.44% of the vote. Matt Claman had 73/40.56% of the vote.

Precinct 615 is clearly a precinct that would be tough to win as a Republican. For a Republican to win this District race, it will take a Republican who can get votes from those voters who will cross party lines to vote for them and the independent voter.

When it comes to money. Can you win without money? No. The question is how much will be needed to win. My bet, is not much in this race.

Here are some other statistics.

Precinct 145Mary Marks had 202/48.33% of the votes. I had 208/49.76% of the votes.

Precinct 160Mary Marks had 253/51.63% of the votes. I had 232/47.35% of the votes.

Precinct 165Mary Marks had 258/49.05% of the votes. I had 262/49.81% of the votes.

Precinct 200Mary Marks had 163/52.92% of the votes. I had 140/45.45% of the votes.

Precinct 210Mary Marks had 215/53.62% of the votes. I had 179/44.64% of the votes.

Precinct 340Mary Marks had 76/51.35% of the vote. I had 69/46.62% of the votes.This was at Mountain View Elementary School.

Precinct 555Mary Marks had 77/50.66% of the votes. I had 73/48.03% of the votes.

Precinct 740Mary Marks had 142/56.35% of the votes. I had 110/43.65% of the votes.

Precinct 860Mary Marks had 171/51.66% of the votes. I had 153/46.33% of the votes.

Precinct 865Mary Marks had 132/54.77% of the votes. I had 108/44.81% of the votes.

There is no doubt that Randy Reudrich had an impact on this race. That is unfortunate, given Mary's DUI. One wonders would Randy take the same route today with Mary. Or the same route he did with Troy Spray.

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

Way to go Tom. I had no idea your race with Mary was that close. Also excellent concept on the comparison of begging for money. Maybe we can spend all kinds of money and have a vote for homeless race. That way we can at least feel good about giving money to someone we voted for.